The Shadows in the Street (41 page)

‘I probably shouldn’t say this,’ he said, ‘but ill or not, Ruth is being grossly unfair on you. It was her duty to go into hospital and get herself better. As it is, you’re a wreck, you can’t function as Dean or anything else while this is going on, and when she is found you really are going to have to be firm. We’ve known each other a long time, Stephen, I have great respect for you, but I have to say this is not doing us any favours. I’m going to call a Chapter meeting if you won’t, and you must formally ask for three months’ leave of absence. Now, drink this.’

He held out a measure of brandy. Stephen did not move. His shoulders remained hunched and he continued to sob. Miles set the glass down beside him.

‘Stephen, pull yourself together. This is very difficult, I understand, but you have to face things. Hold fast.’

Stephen lifted his head and took out a handkerchief.

‘Now drink that.’

He drank.

‘Right. Now, presumably the police are looking for her again? Perhaps she’s gone to her previous hiding place. She won’t be far away. It was more worrying the last time when it seemed possible that she was a victim of this madman, but now that her mental condition is known, there won’t be that confusion.’

‘Dear God, Miles, I should have recognised that she was in such a bad state. I should have insisted.’

‘Well, you did as you thought best.’

‘No. That’s the point. I knew perfectly well what was for the best and I was too afraid to stand firm. How could she have slipped out without my even waking up?’

‘Oh come, that’s something easily done. Ruth is very determined and she is not a noisy person by nature – even more when she is trying not to disturb you. That’s not your fault.’

‘I feel at fault. I feel entirely guilty.’

‘Yes, but that’s not very productive. Accept that the worst you have done is make an error of judgement. Now, will you call an extraordinary meeting of the Chapter or shall I? I have authority but it would be better coming from you, obviously.’

‘Yes. You’re quite right, I’m of no use to anyone just at the moment. Perhaps ever.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Now, may I make a suggestion? That you and I go into the cathedral and pray together that Ruth returns home safely and accepts the need to be admitted to hospital? It would help, you know.’

Stephen wiped his eyes, and put his hand on Miles’s arm for a second.

‘You are a rock,’ he said. ‘It’s always been the case but now … Bless you, Miles.’

Sixty-three

At seven thirty Hannah rang to say goodnight and the call went on as she gave a detailed account of the programme she and Judith had just watched, then of Felix having hidden the bath plug.

‘Let me speak to Felix.’

‘Heyyyylooo.’

‘Felix, where did you hide Granny Jude’s bath plug?’

There was a pause then shrieks of laughter before Felix put the phone down.

Cat sighed and went back to making herself a salad sandwich. Judith would coax the information out of him. Judith could coax Felix to do anything. She wondered if Simon was still there or whether something had happened to call him back to the station.

Sam had said little on the way home but that little had been enlightening. She had not spoken herself, determined not to make him clam up, and for a while there had been silence in the car. But she had taken the longer route home and as they had left the outskirts and got onto the country road, Sam said, ‘Does it make you gay if you play hockey?’

‘No. It makes you a hockey player. Why?’

‘Just wondered. Does it make you an orphan if your dad died?’

‘No, only if both your parents die.’

‘Does it make you a wuss?’

‘Does what make you a wuss?’

‘If … your dad died.’

‘Absolutely not. Of course it doesn’t. Whatever a “wuss” is. What is it?’

‘Not sure. A coward, I think.’

‘How could anyone think that? Is that what people have said to you, Sam?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Right, well, that makes them much worse than a wuss, it makes them cruel, mean, thoughtless and unkind.’

For a second Cat’s eyes filled with tears, tears of rage more than of distress, that Sam should have had to bear this sort of bullying. She brushed them away with her hand.

‘It’s OK,’ Sam said in an odd little voice.

‘No, Sam, it isn’t OK. It’s very not OK. Do you want me to talk to them at school?’

‘No! No, please don’t, don’t do anything. Please say you won’t.’

‘All right, I promise I won’t. If you promise to tell me if anyone says that sort of thing again, Sam. I have to know. If they’re cruel and mean to you they’ll be cruel and mean to other people – you have to stand up to bullies.’

‘I know. I do. But you going in to school isn’t me standing up to them.’

‘That’s true. All right, but please remember. How’s school otherwise?’

‘OK.’

Something in his tone of voice warned her not to push any further.

‘Look!’ Sam whistled as a barn owl swooped ahead of them, skimming low over the hedge.

‘Uncle Simon said he’d take you with him on one of his walks, once he’s got some free time.’

‘I wish he’d take me to that Scottish place. That island. I really want to go there. Did you know they sometimes see golden eagles? He didn’t. But they do.’

‘Maybe next year.’

‘Could I?’

‘You’ll have to ask him obviously but I think it would be great, yes.’

Sam let out a long sigh.

At Hallam House, Judith found the bath plug in one of Richard’s slippers, Hannah lay in bed reading her Barbie comic and Simon sat with Felix on his lap trying to put him into his pyjamas and remember more than one verse of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. Richard was in his study reading the paper, a glass of Taransay malt beside him.

‘You’re good at this,’ Judith said.

‘No, I’m not, he’s got his pyjama top on inside out.’

‘In general.’

‘If this is heading to “wouldn’t you love to have your own children?” territory the answer is no.’

‘It wasn’t. I wouldn’t presume.’

‘No,’ Simon said looking at her with affection, ‘you’re the one person I know who never would. Cat used to presume the entire time until we had a row about it, but she still sort of hovers around the subject.’

‘Ignore her. OK, are you putting this young man into his bed or am I?’ Felix slithered out of Simon’s grasp and went racing out of the room. Downstairs, Richard heard the small footsteps go across the landing, the adult protestations, and took another sip of whisky. Family life again. He had never enjoyed time with his own children when they were as young as this, partly because, as a hospital doctor, he had seen little of them, partly because he simply had not liked the early stages of childhood, partly because of Martha. Martha had been different.

He loved his grandchildren and thought that he tolerated their presence around his house very well. He had more time, he was more relaxed, and it was all because of Judith. But his plan for him and Judith to spend a year driving round America had not been abandoned. He wanted to get away, and he wanted her to himself. Cat, he decided, was ready to stand on her own two feet, and if she was not, their absence would see to it. When the children had gone back home tomorrow, he intended to raise the subject again.

Sixty-four

Vanek and Mead stared at the blackboard menu in the pub they had found six miles out of Lafferton, and which nobody else in the force seemed to know about. It had become their own place.

‘Soup and ham and eggs,’ Ben said.

‘You’ll be full up.’

‘I want to be full up.’

‘Crab salad and a fishcake.’

‘And chips.’

‘No.’

He gave the order across the bar. ‘And chips twice.’

Steph stalked across to a table by the window, even though it was dark. The fire was lit in the bar and there were stubby candles on the table.

‘You can eat mine then.’

‘Be a pleasure.’

Steph took a long draught of dry cider. ‘If I have to look at one more CCTV tape this week I quit.’

‘No you won’t.’

‘Shut up or I’ll buy you a beanie hat.’

‘That isn’t funny.’

‘No,’ Steph said, ‘it’s not. Sorry.’

‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘What else is there to talk about?’

‘Can you ski?’

‘Yup. Black runs.’

‘OK, come skiing with me. We’ll both have leave after Christmas, if not before.’

‘Is this a proposition?’

‘Yes.’

Steph smiled. But she was uncertain if she wanted to go as far as taking a holiday with him. Not yet. She liked Ben, they worked well as a team, they’d enjoyed some good nights out. Anything further and she panicked.

‘I’ll think about it.’ She would. And then say no.

‘How long before one of two things happens?’ Ben asked now. ‘Another of the girls is murdered – or they’re not and the whole thing gets downgraded.’

‘It won’t get downgraded, it can’t.’

‘There are a hell of a lot of resources being thrown at all of this, Steph – look at the overtime alone. Dogs. Divers. Permanent manned vans by the canal. Leafleting. It can’t drag on for ever getting nowhere and costing what it’s costing.’

‘It won’t go on getting nowhere.’

‘Says who?’

She finished her drink. The starters came, with a basket of fresh bread.

‘I didn’t ask for bread.’

‘I did.’

‘You eat too much bread. All those canteen sarnies.’

He threw a bit at her.

‘The other thing people are starting to worry about is the gaps in policing elsewhere … it was always going to happen. Look at the car thefts, look at that spate of burglaries on big country houses. The only people not involved in the murder investigations are the drug squad.

‘I thought we weren’t talking, er, shop?’

The piece of bread came back.

‘Still think Serrailler walks on water then?’

‘I never did.’

‘Liar. He isn’t cracking this one, is he?’

Ben was silent. He was not about to agree with her, not about to admit that his idol had feet of clay. But there was something in what Steph was saying and she was not the only one saying it. He wiped his bread round the soup bowl.

‘Man U for the triple,’ he said.

Steph snorted. Football talk was one more nail in Ben Vanek’s coffin.

Hayley lay on Louise’s sofa covered with a duvet, under which Liam and Frankie were also snuggled, watching an old
Batman
film. She had come home from the hospital feeling terrible, and called Louise to ask if she could keep Liam just one more night. Within half an hour, Gwenda Mayo had come round and fetched her and she was tucked up with the kids, a mug of tea and a couple of painkillers.

‘You’re just so kind,’ she kept saying ‘why are you being so kind?’

Lou looked surprised. ‘You’re only on the couch with some tea,’ she said. ‘It’s not a lot to do and you’d have been miserable on your own, it would have felt a whole lot worse. If those two are bothering you chuck them off.’

‘They’re not.’ The boys wriggled and started to try and shove each other until Frankie fell off the sofa.

Leslie Blade had slept much of the afternoon, in the chair opposite to his mother, slept and had tea, and felt that he should begin to do what he had been told, and walk. ‘Half an hour a day,’ had been the recommendation, which sounded little enough and he had left Norah watching the evening news. Even putting on his coat and outdoor shoes seemed strange, as if it had been years since he had done such a thing. Half an hour. Perhaps he would extend it day after day until he felt able to walk to the library and then to go into work, help out for an hour or so, and then half a shift and so on until life was normal again.

Normal life would mean that he could start to pack the sandwiches again and make the tea, take out the car and drive down to the printworks. Normal life. But Norah would hear him, and now Norah knew and had spoken to him, nothing would be the same because he would feel anxious, self-conscious, wondering if she would be awake when he got back and wanting to ask him questions.

He closed the gate. There were lights on in the houses, cars going up and down the street. People were coming home, eating tea, watching television, getting ready to go out. He hesitated, then turned left. After fifty yards, he was exhausted. Half an hour would take him almost into town and he had not walked for more than a couple of minutes. He was out of breath, he felt nervous about going further, and his legs would hardly hold him up. Normal life. He sat on the low wall of a house and waited until he felt stronger, wondering if there would ever be any normal life for him again.

Sixty-five

Cat went upstairs. It was almost nine but Sam was still reading the Sherlock Holmes.

‘I have to finish it, I can’t sleep if I don’t.’

‘How far to go?’

He flicked forwards. ‘Nine pages.’

‘OK. Then …’

‘I know. Can you go now please?’

Cat laughed. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be all right?’

She leaned over him, wondering if he was going to turn his face quickly so that her kiss landed somewhere at the back of his head. But instead he dropped his book, put his arms up round her neck and pulled her down. He said nothing at all.

‘Love you, Sambo.’

As quickly, his arms dropped and he was deep in his book again.

It was quiet. Mephisto was out hunting by the light of a full moon. Cat made herself a cup of coffee to see her through her course notes, and took it into the small study. Of all the rooms in the house, this was the one in which she missed Chris the least, simply because he had rarely done more than put his head round the door. It was her room. He had never left a letter or a book in it, his mark was simply not on it at all. It was the same as it had always been. She did not need reminders of him but she got them, sometimes sharply, when she found an item of his clothing still left in a drawer or saw his writing in the margins of a book she consulted. She had felt his presence in the house strongly in the weeks and months after his death, had walked into a room and known that he was there. But never in this room.